Synopsis

It has taken 10 years, two little Fockers with wife Pam and countless hurdles for Greg to finally get "in" with his tightly wound father-in-law Jack. After the cash-strapped Dad takes a job moonlighting for a drug company, Jack's suspicions about his favorite male nurse come roaring back.
When Greg and Pam's entire clan descends for the twins birthday party, Greg must prove to Jack that he is capable of being the man of the house.

Despite having to deal with several new releases, Tangled was able to remain on top of the sales chart this week, albeit in a close race. It sold an additional 807,000 units over the week for a total of 4.27 million units, while its revenue rose to $65.17 million.
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It's Tron week with at least seven releases related to Tron and Tron: Legacy. This appears to have scared away the competition, because outside of those releases, there's not much of a selection. Actually, there are three $100 million hits coming out this week; however, one doesn't come out till Friday, so I'll likely deal with it next week after the screener arrives, and the other is so bad it's best to pretend it doesn't exist. Those two films are clearly the Pick of the Week, but depending on where you buy your DVDs, the Combo Pack may or may nor be less expensive than buying the twofilms separately, so double-check before you buy.
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International numbers were a day late due to the holiday, but there were some interesting stories to report. Firstly, Tangled climbed to top spot with $16.01 million on 4187 screens, in 38 markets, for a total of $214.02 million internationally and $395.03 million worldwide. It was able to climb to the top, despite no major market openings. It did add $3.33 million on 432 screens during its second weekend in Australia. That was enough for second place in that market over the weekend, while it lifted its total there to $13.23 million. In Brazil it remained in first place with $2.69 million on 447 screens over the weekend and $12.98 million after two. Up next is the U.K., while it has yet to open in Spain, Scandinavia, and Japan and by the time its done, it could have $500 million worldwide.
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Two wide releases this week look to bring in the green and return the overall box office to the black. The wider of the two, The Green Hornet, is even looking to earn more than Avatar did this time last year, which would be a major victory for 2011. I'm not saying its going to, but it is a real possibility. And if it can't, it appears it is more likely than not that it will match The Book of Eli's opening from last year, which would at least be some positive news for the box office.
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We are again stuck with studio estimates, which is a bit troubling, as I was hoping the schedule would have returned to normal. Also, this has resulted in a bit of confusion with Tangled and The Tourist finishing in a very close race for the number one position. Tangled led the way according to the studio estimate with $26.3 million on 3,636 screens in 43 markets for a total of $179.3 million internationally and $355.1 million worldwide. This week it debuted in first place in Australia with $5.74 million on 462 screens over the weekend, for a total opening of $6.08 million. Meanwhile in Brazil it topped the charts with $4.53 million on 446 screens over the weekend and $5.98 million in total. In both cases the film opened better than it did here.
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It was quite a depressing weekend, as almost no film in the top five topped expectations. Worst still, it wasn't expected to be a good weekend to begin with. This left the overall box office down just over 30% from last weekend to $112 million. More importantly, that was nearly 30% less than the same weekend last year. If you want to really search for good news, you could point to the fact that if you take out Avatar out of the equation, then 2011 would have beaten 2010 over the weekend, but even here the margin of victory would have been lower than the ticket price inflation. It is way too early to judge how well 2011 will do compared to 2010, but so far it is 23% off of last year's pace at $281 million to $365 million. I expect that gap will grow in terms of raw dollars, but by the time Memorial Day rolls around, 2011 could start rattling off some wins.
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The post-Holiday hangover at the box office began in earnest this weekend, with the week's new wide release, Season of the Witch, and wide expansion, Country Strong both unable to gain much traction, allowing holdovers to dominate the chart.
True Grit will end the weekend on top with an estimated $15 million, according to Paramount, and a running total of $110 million.
Little Fockers will finish second with about $13.8 million, per Universal's estimates.
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So, will holdovers bewitch the box office?
The answer to that is almost guaranteed to be yes.
There is almost no chance either the one wide release, Season of the Witch, or the major expansion, Country Strong, will top the chart. In fact, one could argue there's a better chance neither will reach the top five. This is really bad news for the start of 2011. We knew the holdovers wouldn't be as strong as they were last year, no with Avatar earning $50 million over the weekend, but if the new releases can't keep pace with last year's new releases, we could be in trouble.
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The Christmas break is just ending, but as it is normally the case, international numbers are late. We do have studio estimates for a few films, as well as last week's final numbers, which had a surprise change at the top. We'll start with this week's possible number one film. Gulliverís Travels led the list of studio estimates with $24.9 million on 3,964 screens in 33 markets for a total of $48.9 million. This includes a massive $10.98 million opening on 497 screens in the U.K. That's like a $50 to $60 million opening here; granted, that was since boxing day, but since it won't make that much in total domestically, it is still an impressive opening. On the other hand, it opened in second place in Australia with $2.85 million on 411 screens. Still better than its opening here, but more inline with expectations.
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2011 has begun but it didn't get off to a strong start. It didn't even get off to a better than expected start, as only one film in the top five really topped expectations. Overall, the box office grew by 10% from last week hitting $159 million, but that's not great given Christmas Eve landed on a Friday. It was also down 28% from the same weekend last year, so 2011 is off to a bad start. Granted, it's incredibly early, but there are not a lot of hopeful signs for the rest of the month and double-digit declines will likely be the norm.
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With no new wide releases over New Year's weekend, this week's was a battle of the holdovers at the box office, and thanks to the fact that Christmas Eve (a slow day at the box office) fell on a Friday in 2010, the weekend-to-weekend comparison for each movie generally looked good.
Curiously, though, the top three movies all declined from last weekend while all the other movies in the top 20 saw increases.
With plenty of films to choose from, audiences spent over $4 million on at least 13 different films, seven of which topped $10 million.
That's not quite a record (no less than nine movies earned over $10 million over MLK weekend in 2001), but it is unusual.
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The New Year's weekend normally has no wide releases, and that's the case this year. This means last weekend's three big hits will finish one-two-three this weekend, although they could finish in a different order. Meanwhile, all three combined might not make as much as Avatar earned this time last year, meaning 2010 will end and 2011 will begin on a sour note.
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With Christmas just behind us and New Year's Day just ahead, a lot of studios are on vacation, so there are not a lot of details when it comes to box office numbers and we are stuck with studio estimates for the most part. According to these estimates, Little Fockers took top spot with $27 million on 3933 screens in 37 markets during its opening. However, it was such a tight race that once final figures are in, it might slip to second, or even third. Its biggest market was the U.K., where it opened in first place with $7.3 million on 487 screens. By comparison, Meet the Parents made twice that during its debut in 2005. Ouch.
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It was a good news, really bad news weekend. Let's start with the good news. The overall box office for the year reached $10 billion for only the second time in history. Bad news, the box office this past weekend was so bad that 2010 lost its lead over 2009. It did rise from last weekend by 8% to $145 million, but that's 47% lower than the same weekend last year. Granted, Christmas Eve landing on a Friday did have a lot to do with that, but this is still a terrible result. Year-to-date, 2010 has now earned $10.33 billion, which is about $50 million behind last year's pace. It won't get better next weekend, so 2010 won't be setting the record.
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This weekend could be a disaster at the box office. Not only is it likely that the biggest release will under-perform, but Christmas Eve lands on the Friday. Christmas Eve is a black hole at the box office and it basically cuts nearly a full day off the weekend. Worse still, last year was incredibly strong and it is very possible that the number one movie this year won't make as much as the third place film did last year.
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Christmas is almost upon us, and the week after that is New Year's Day. My goal is to keep my weight gain to under 5 pounds, and if not, that's why we have exercise videos. This week we spread the joy as part of our weekly box office prediction contest. The biggest release of next week should be Little Fockers, although it opens on Wednesday not the Friday, so that complicates matters. In fact, with Christmas Eve falling on the Friday, it will be a tough weekend to predict. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Little Fockers.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of The Biggest Loser Workout: Power Walk on DVD and Jane Fonda Prime Time: Fit & Strong on DVD.
Meanwhile, whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will win a copy of The Biggest Loser Workout: Cardio Max Weight-Loss on DVD and Dancing with the Stars: Fat-Burning Cardio Dance on DVD.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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It's the end of the year and there are certainly some question marks that will be answered over the next 31 days. Are there any monster hits left for 2010? Will 2010 manage to stay ahead of 2009? Will it actually start winning again at the box office? Unfortunately, the answer to all three of those questions might be no. First of all, of the November wide releases, only two will really match expectations, with a couple of others coming close. So December starts on the weak side. Additionally, last December saw the release of Avatar, the biggest box office hit of all time. There's no film coming out this month that will match that movie. In fact, there's a chance no movie coming out this month will match last December's second place film, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. This means that even though 2010 had a $300 million lead over 2009 just a few weeks ago, by the end of the year, 2010 might fail to break last year's record.
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Full financial estimates for this film, including domestic and international box office, video sales, video rentals, TV and ancillary revenue
are available through our research services. For more information, please contact us at research@the-numbers.com.